3.17.2012

from the oceans and their deep, dark blues to the mountains and their lush vibrant greens, from people with skin of ebony and ivory, to animals with spots and stripes, from warm sun to cool rain and everything in between....the wild, crazy, beautiful, diversity surrounding us every moment is astounding. i sometimes fear if i dwell on it for too long...i might go mad trying to wrap my lil pea brain around the connectedness of it all. i sometimes think my heart will burst with happiness one moment and just as quickly am afraid it will crack wide open with sadness.

one god....no god....whatever or whomever you believe

you can't deny

there is something powerful at work

if i told you i had a life changing experience, would you believe me? yeah, i'm not sure i would either. but 3 weeks ago i went to south africa. and there the undeniable, irrevocable, elixir that is travel began to work its magic.

here's the thing about travel and getting out of your comfort zone, about crossing time zones and boarders and journeying to far flung places...you can't honestly open yourself up to the potential strangeness of it all and continue to think the same way you've always thought. you can't accept the hospitality of a stranger and not want to know their story.

you can't walk into a classroom and not care about the children. you can't read about a place like Soweto and actually meet someone from there and not come away fascinated by the human spirit.

and you can't come face to face with a leopard and not be changed.

our first night out on safari at sabi sabiwe saw a rhino and an elephant and the most glorious african sunset and as if that proliferation of power and beauty wasn't enough to drop you to your knees...we rounded a corner and there in the fading twilight were 11 lioness draped across a boulder like diamonds on velvet....

only a gazillion times more stunning.

after having listened to our ranger zwai talk earlier in the day about the daunting battle these majestic animals face, it's not surprising i suppose, that i reached up to brush away tears. looking at them lying there as they have for millions of years i started to understand the collision of past, present and future that they talk about at sabi sabi.

i wish i could convey to you the absolute awesomeness of the experience. i wish i could pull you inside my chest so you could feel the tug firsthand. i wish i could find the words that would infuse you with the elation of walking up to a giraffe and watching his curious, quizzical face stare back. i wish you could feel your breath catch in your throat at the tangible energy of a rhino pawing at the earth, feet from where you sit. i wish you could have felt the sense of awe so powerful your soul literally wanted to bow in honor to the supreme goodness of it all. i wish you could have heard our ranger from swato talk about connectedness and balance and i wish your heart would also have been flooded by that truth.

and seconds later on the heels of that revelation, i wish you could have felt the intense sense of shame being human sometimes brings with it.

but most of all i wish you could have felt the intense sense of responsibility to make a difference.

i've always admired but never fully understood people like jane goodall and alan rabinowitz and the like. individuals who spend their lives giving voices to peoples and species who have none

but in an instant i understood and if i were a braver person i would like to spend my time doing the same so that one day my children could also be changed by experience.

and so as i write i am bound by a feverish fear and frustration that while reading this you might for a second think wow....and then go about your dayunchanged.

but while words can be rendered ineffective...therein lies the intrinsic magic of travel. you have to experience it firsthand to be changed.

c' est moi

a ms turned mrs, dedicated to the process of reconciling her ms-ness with her mrs-dome thereby ensuring each week she does some:
good eating,
great lovin,
new livin,
a bit of travelin,
some spirit building,
and a healthy dose of whatever makes her happy…

lay of the "blog"land

a quote i adore....

"be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary."~ cecil beaton

happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.~ denis waitley